Often, kids shut down when they think they’re in trouble. They get defensive and they don’t communicate. Or, parents try to intervene in the heat of the moment, which rarely works. The second step of Plan B — Define the Problem — helps the child do something he’s probably never been good at: taking another person’s concerns into account. The child doesn’t have to own your concern to assist in solving the problem, and he doesn’t have to care about it, he merely needs to take it into account. It is possible that in a smaller family a parent would have this much time to devote to every episode but in a family with 4 children it took about 4 days before I got tired of the script and that was that. In spite of the book's insistence that kids don't manipulate, I was clearly being manipulated away from my other activities at every opportunity to negotiate how I could accommodate the whims of a 5-year old. Drop the expectation for now to avoid an explosion. This doesn’t mean you ‘give in’. It would be giving in if you started with Plan A and then went to Plan C. The idea of using Plan C is to be proactive and to prevent an explosion. If you predict that a particular trigger will lead to an explosion, you are being realistic and can focus on the bigger stuff.

Children often are not able to verbalise a concern so the adult needs to ask “What’s up?” If the child can’t articulate, the adult needs to take an educated guess. Keep it simple. For Example if the child says ‘I want pizza’, the adult response would be ‘You want pizza, what’s up?” Reassure the child by saying “I’m not saying you have to do anything” or “I’m not saying ‘no’. This neither agreeing or disagreeing. It keeps the child calm. P. 102. Rewards and punishments are virtually worthless if caregivers don’t first spend time doing the following with their behaviorally challenging child: Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown Is there a likelihood that students who aren’t explosive will become explosive if you do not set an example? This book was so bad I literally could not even force myself to finish it. I have a degree in psychology and am nearly finished on a masters in social work and this book is a disaster. Every parent is going to begin thinking their child is explosive. This guy went to Harvard? He contradicts himself a few times in the book in regards to how behaviorism can't POSSIBLY work with these "explosive" kids and how they just need to be listened and "collaborated" with. Yeah, "conventional wisdom" says not to reason/collaborate with kids - did your parents ever have "explosive" friends when they were growing up? Grandparents? Because in the majority of cases, conventional wisdom DOES work.Explosive children often require a different approach to discipline and limit setting than other children. Dealing more effectively with explosive children requires, first and foremost, an understanding of why these children behave the way they do. Once this understanding is achieved, strategies for helping things improve often become self — evident. In some instances, achieving a more accurate understanding of a child’s difficulties can, by itself, lead to improvements in adult — child interactions, even before any formal strategies are tried. Explosive children have wonderful qualities and tremendous potential. In most ways, their general cognitive skills have developed at a normal pace. Yet their inflexibility and poor tolerance for frustration often obscure their more positive traits and cause them and those around them enormous pain. There is no other group of children who are so misunderstood. Not all of the theories presented here were 'ah hah!' moments for me, however. Dr. Greene includes many examples of dialogue and situations throughout the book to elucidate his points. There is a lot of repetition and different ways of 'getting at the point'--indicating to me that he is well aware that part of the issues parents have with their children stem from their own difficulties understanding things. This is not written for academic consumption...anyone can read and understand this book with middle school reading skills and a few hours of time. Taking breaks from reading to implement the 'Plans' will obviously take longer than just plowing through the reading like I did. This will not be a review to tell you if this 'works'--I do not have a challenging kid. I don't have any children. I read this because I enjoy reading psychology books and I have friends with challenging children, one of whom specifically requested I read this book with her. I have decided to give this a review as I would any other psych, soc, or econ book I've read in the past since I can't really enlighten potential readers on the success or failure of the methods in practice. So I'm reviewing this as an outsider to the problem---I'm just the one rolling my eyes at the bad parents in a restaurant who won't keep their kids under control and ruin my night out.

Create a community of learners by using Plan B with all students — that is a social curriculum which accentuates differences . The book is billed as "a new approach for understanding and parenting easily frustrated, chronically inflexible children". I don't know if it's new - it seemed logical and simple enough, but I think the author's presentation is so clear that you will benefit from the book even if you are already trying to solve problems with your child collaboratively. A few reviewers seemed to feel that the author was negative, but I completely disagree. I thought he was extraordinarily understanding toward children and parents. His starting premise is that children will do well if they can. Sometimes, it is hard to keep that in mind, or to believe it, when a child "explodes" frequently. It is hard not to feel the child is being manipulative or something like that, but the author works hard to remind you that it is more complicated than that, and that is a good thing, because it makes his approach possible. The method is simple, in a way, but it is systematic and requires work. The author does not split hairs trying to define what an explosive child is, but there are a large number of transcripts that show them in action. You do not need a diagnosis to get started. As a matter of fact, I liked the way he downplayed the importance and value of a diagnosis almost entirely. I ended up really enjoying this book. It was a big eye opener for me on how to deal with my child that is stubborn, smart, perfectionist, always needing to be right, and throws temper tantrums and has a really short fuse. It was interesting idea on that your child just is missing some ways on how to process certain things that happen to them, which end up really frustrate them. How giving them a punishment while they are frustrated is ineffective, and so are many other parenting practices for your child. It made me much more sympathetic towards my child, and want to help him out. He talks about catching your child before they have a meltdown and talking them down and out of frustrations. Modeling a thinking processes, and talking them through what a lot of other kids already do in their heads.The "Plan B" approach that Greene explains seems like it would only work for children ages 10 and up. It's a nice idea to collaborate with my child instead of just tell him what to do, but even though he has the language skills to communicate he doesn't seem to have the emotional and comprehension skills to explain why he's acting out or come up with a possible solution he wants. Explosive children do not choose to be explosive in the same way that children who have reading and mathematical difficulties do not choose to do so.